Memoirs

Memoirs

My first memory, real or imagined, was being wheeled under an archway in my pram. I was later told that this might be from my first home in Wales as a baby. I like to believe it was my real memory, I think it’s pretty.

One of the times I remember being raped, I was sat up on a cold kitchen bench. There was spilt sugar against my bare thighs that scratched. There was stubborn oil on his hands, and I could always smell old spice mixed with sugar soap. That day, I was thinking of my toy pony with the green feathered legs, and wondering whether we could be seen through the tiny frosted glass window beside us. I always wondered about the family next door, worried they’d see. I was stinging amidst the chilled air. The sugar under my skin reminded me of the Princess and the pea story, and that I could feel each grain.

In those years, I loved to race my bike as fast as it would go. I would fly over curbs, speeding faster, then I would freewheel for metres at a time. Days like that, it would be sore to sit down, so I would stand up on my pedals. It made me feel higher; like flying. In later years when I horse rode often, I would continue to stand up in the saddle when I galloped.

I loved to go fast. I would go for compact adventures around the small town we lived in. I would hunt the different natural obstacles; at the shopping centre the curbs that separted the carpark. If you didn’t pick up enough speed, the curbs would stop your bike dead and you’d have to jump off before it toppled. Or along the roads; the town was quiet enough; and I would ride carefully like they showed us in our Cycling Proficiency at school. Except I passed that test on a horrible girls bike; purely for pretence. Not enough feminine influence for a girl being raised by a single parent father and a brother. So I rode the girls bike grudgingly.

But when I rode as myself, I was on my mountain bike. My bike before was my brothers hand me down, a blue and white BMX. One white wheel, and one blue. My bike actually went up curbs, not like my friend’s bikes. Girl bikes didn’t go up curbs.

Another early memory I have, is of sitting with my brother on the landing upstairs, holding the banisters, and just listening. There was shouting downstairs. Mum and Dad were arguing. Soon afterwards, on my birthday, I continued to have Birthdays every day for a week. We stayed with Dad.

Visits become regular, and trips to McDonalds and the shops with a social worker. He bought us things, and asked us if we really want to live with our mother. I did, but I didn’t say it. Dad had already told us all about social workers. They were trying to take us away from him. We ate the food, but kept quiet.

Trips to Mum’s new house began to happen. My brother at first refused to go, so I went alone. She had a new husband and a new baby. I loved my new baby brother. I’d sit in the sandpit as I made daisy chains. I liked Mum’s new husband a lot. Mum’s new house was a bungalow, and I shared a room with my new brother. I’d line all my teddy bears along the bed beside me and kiss every one religiously before sleep. If the line was long, I’d have to kiss the first couple again, since they’d have gotten jealous by then. I’d eat marmite soldiers, and co-ordinate which toy ‘my little ponies’ came with me by rump mark categories.

Back at home, My Dad would keep the light beside my bed on for hours, making me tell him every little detail of my visit. Was my Stepdad there? I lied often. I liked my Stepdad. I’d say I hardly saw him at all. Or that he hadn’t been at the house at all. Dad told me he was a monster, but I was never convinced. I had seen too much evidence for myself. Seeing and enjoying my Stepdad’s company was a guilty secret. So were all the details of my visits. But Dad would still interrogate. I would be tired, and his teeth would clench. I used to space my father out, until my head felt fuzzy , and his face faded out of different colours. But when I refocussed, he was still there, still angry.

We were taught constantly of the enemy; the social workers, the courts. We rehearsed our lines. They were trying to take us from our Dad, leave him with nothing; “To wander alone for the rest of my life with nothing left to live for” he’d say.

I was often threatened with being sent to live with my Mum. I had to plead not to be, to calm my Dad. His anger would cool, to know that we would ‘rather die’ than live with Mum.

{“She wants to leave me with nothing.”}

(“I’ll never love anyone else. I love your Mum.”}

{“Would she take me back? One day we’ll be back together.”}

{“Should I try?”}

So life went on, and I knew how to lie about my visits, the right things to say to social workers. Our mother had left us, and didn’t care about us, we were told. She just wanted custody of us, to get back at our Dad. Our dad gave us other names to call her, and listened in on our phone calls. We sent back her presents and Birthday cards.

Around this time, I put my Mum on a pedastal. I had seen too much evidence of her to believe anything bad about her. I defended her when I could, when it wasn’t too risky. I thought she’d save me one day, if I was patient and loyal.

I was told later, that around this time, My mum had taken pictures of me in the bath. There was concern of the number of bruises and marks on my body. My Dad was often rough when he was angry. And me and my brother loved to fight like cat and dog. People were always telling me that I was 'in the wars.' These photos went in my file. I saw this legendary file later on when I was 13. It looked like a phonebook.

One day, I was at my Nan’s house, and my stepdad was there when my Dad had came to pick me up. I tried to leave the house, but my stepdad blocked the path. My Dad was outside, and both men were shouting at each other. I was scrambling; desperate to get to my Dad but I couldn’t get out. This memory has stuck as one of my worst. I had to get to my Dad. How dare they stop me?

I had an Auntie and Uncle, who weren’t really. They fostered kids, and I always wanted to be fostered by them. My Auntie would sing “Killing me Softly” around the house. She taught me to sing, and I made her sing “Tell Laura I love her” over and over, as I loved the story.

One Christmas we spent there, my Dad got angry at me and whipped me with a towel. My Auntie hugged as I cried about it all, and said she wanted to adopt me, and would I like to be adopted? Jokingly, she’d meant it, but I cried harder and wanted it desperately. I wondered how kids qualified to be fostered. But I thought I had a normal life, and it wasn’t messy enough.

Because I was never adopted, I thought my Dad wasn’t abusive, like the parents of the foster kids. He was just difficult, and I’d have to live with it. Dad was usually tired, and that made his anger flare. At this time, I was also being regularly abused, though my mind didn’t register it. And as much as I argued back to my Dad these days, I pitied him more and more.

I's decided that I wasn’t an abused kid, I had to just deal with Dad. I was taking care of my Dad in a strange way. He was becoming pitiful, childish in his thoughts, and paranoid. The world was against him, and he had nothing left but us kids he told us.

{“If they ever take you from me, I’d move to Spain and spend all my money on drink and drugs. I’d have a couple of great years before I died.”}

{“If you left me, I’d have nothing to live for.”}

I remember calming him, talking over his fears and uncertainties. I couldn’t leave him, he’d fall to pieces.

He would go to jail if anyone found out. {“They’d take me away. They’d put me in jail; do you understand?”} He also compared me to his girlfriends. He had a few girlfriends, and each I would cling to. But each he would stop dating within weeks.

{“She wasn’t you.”}

My visits to my mum were stopped to my horror. My Dad, Auntie and Uncle decided that the small visits I had with her, were emotionally damaging me. I was becoming difficult and argumentative. I answered back to my Dad now, and told him his irrational thoughts were idiotic. I protested, and kicked up fusses.

I’d sit on my hands in the passenger seat of the car. {“Did I hurt you?”}
“No, no... it’s ok. This is just comfortable.”

I watched a film once, where a man had said to rape victim, that “it didn’t happen if you hadn’t wanted it to.” I think this was a little idealistic, but I liked the idea. It was romantic.

Most days I'd feel desperate. It didn’t fade over time. I feel like curling up with this self loathing. Then, it turns to anger. It burns inside of me, and I feel defensive of myself. I can do anything, because the pain is constant and makes the simple things in life feel useless.

The rules and layers of my entire existence are like paper. Nothing but everything matters. I can do anything, all I have to do is try my hardest. I can't fail because I feel like I have nothing left to lose.

When I was told I’d won my court case, I cried. I was mad that I hadn’t faced my father in court. Of all we’d been through, he hadn’t had the decency to fight me face to face. My victory felt empty, incomplete. They had plea bargained, and dropped 10 out of the 13 charges.

One day, we were driving down the motorway, me and my Dad. I was 14, and visiting him. He played a Chris De Burgh song that he said reminded him of me and my brother. I’d always liked the Christmas song, ‘Spaceman came travelling’ by the same artist. The countryside was a blur alongside the car, and it was just me and him. We were Bonny and Clyde. I felt a deep protectiveness over him. It was me and him against the world. I was happy beyond words. I knew that he felt it too. I remember thinking, ‘If this was it and this car crashes right now... I’d die happy.’ My heart was high in my chest.

I was in a caravan in Mousehole, Cornwall when I heard my Auntie who fostered kids had died. I was talking to my real Auntie, and telling her about her. My Auntie stopped me, confused, and asked why I was talking in the present tense. I said ‘because she’s still alive.’
My Auntie shook her head, and told me she’d passed away. I was silent for maybe a few seconds, before I broke down in tears. My Dad hadn’t told me out of spite, and not even told me about the funeral that he had attended. I hadn’t even said goodbye.

I was stood with my family in our house. I went to the toilets, and I was bleeding. There was blood in my knickers. I was 10 or 11. I told my Dad, and he told me I’d started my periods. He went back into the room with all my family, and announced it to everyone. I nearly died of embarrasment as they congratulated me. I next started my periods when I was just about 16. I didn’t realise then, but he’d covered his tracks well. He knew he’d torn me.

{“The girls on my bus got me Valentine cards.”} My Dad told me one day when I was 12. {“I don’t know whether to follow them up or not.”}
I reasoned with him that he shouldn’t. I don’t remember feeling particularly worried or shocked. Just anxious. I just knew I had to persuade him not to date schoolgirls. I couldn’t even fathom that he might be hurting someone else other than me.

Repression, in my experience, feels like there’s a part of your mind that you can’t access. You can see it, see the information, but you have no emotional connection to it. If it was a sum or puzzle, you’d stare for ages, but not register what it was even asking of you. I spent years looking at my experiences, and trying to find excuses for my emotional outbursts and depressions. Still, I couldn’t link them together. For years, I assumed myself still upset by my parents divorce.

When I was 17, and living with my Mum, I woke up one day, and thought to myself. “My Dad has been raping me.” Suddenly, a rush of realisation. So, that’s why I’d escaped when I was 13. That’s why I had felt low all those times. It was as if something in my head had clicked. Until the click, none of this had seemed possible. I knew what had been happening to me, but, I hadn’t accepted it. I had thought I wasn’t an abused kid. I could look at the facts in my head, but not make sense of any of them.
I thought that my Dad was just difficult. Foster kids seemed lucky, whereas my situation would just have to be endured.

There was a second click to come however. Next, who to tell? What to do? I told my best friend first, sat in my bedroom. She didn’t know how to react. I felt a quell of fear, as I realised my Stepdad might have been painting outside my door. He hadn’t been, I was safe.

I didn’t know how to tell my family. It seemed like there were no options. I’d hurt my family. There was no way out, I was certain. The area of my thoughts that should have presented options were dark and unreachable. It’s hard to describe. But I couldn’t think of an escape, my own mind wouldn’t let me, as if there were a wall there. I couldn’t think of a way out. This second click came along a month later. Then suddenly, like the first click, my mind was working properly. I have no way to describe it, other than how I’ve tried to.

I’d destroy my whole famillies happiness, I was sure of it. I told a couple of friends in my sixth form a basic truth; I had a secret that would do a lot of damage.

I thought I was selfish when I finally did. First, I told my brother. I cried when I told him. My words were strangely mechanical. “Dad was abusing me.” He made me promise to tell my Mum soon. The Mum I struggled to get close to in the first place, thanks to my Dad.

I did tell her the next night, and she hugged me and told me I was allowed to cry. I wasn’t used to this. Whenever I had cried, and even afterwards, she reacted badly, so I thought I couldn't express my emotions. When I was younger, I was devastated by this behaviour, thinking we had a bad relationship, and she was rejecting me.

She instead shows she loves me by being practical for me and by being strong when I’m struggling to be. I know she’s always done this. She was strong, and I understand she wanted to be strong for us all. This made me want to be just as strong. But it also made me feel like I couldn’t deal with things the way I felt I should. I felt guilty for crying. But I needed to cry oceans that I’d held back for years. I wanted to cry until there was nothing left.

I didn’t; or couldn’t. I don’t know which. I was hollow. A chocolate egg, with no prize inside.

My best friend eventually got sick of me. I had panic attacks because there was too many people at a party we went to. She made me feel like I was a bad friend for her. I believed her for a short time.

I started fuelling my anger into my writing and artwork. It was my salvation. I would be successful. I’d make up for everything.

Dad was in my dream a night ago. The dream made me wistful. It was precious as it was upsetting. The pieces of him I have left lay dormant here, in my mind. I will build the memory of him; as he has built me. In my dream, we were on a journey, the three of us. Me and my brother, being led across country. The countryside was lush and green. As we walked, we came across a burnt out old car. Dad was talking; always talking. Irrational ideas, thoughts. But we followed, regardless.

I think I’ll piece these moments back together. I’ll stitch them up tenderly. I’ll sew him back together carefully, and soothe his words that never made sense. I won’t just remember the good, I’ll remember everything he was, and I’ll build my shrines here. I’ll take the bad; rape, anger, too much love; because without all this, I’d be remembering a ghost.

But life is big, and he won’t be there with me. Once I lost my Mum and had my Dad, and now I have my Mum I've lost my Dad. Perhaps the trick is not to need anyone, because people come and go, and this is my life, and I will owe no-one for it.

So I’ll keep my Dad alive here in my heart and in my mind, although he's living somewhere now without me. He always told me I could do anything, and that I could be anything I wanted to be if I put my mind to it. I’ll be successful. I’ll conquer this. I'll make myself worth something.

So I’ll romanticise all of this. I’ll take this anger and I’ll use it to be strong, because my Dad always told me I could do anything. Out of all he ever said to me, that's worth remembering.